One of my clients (TribePad), for whom I do front-end development and graphic design projects, came to me today and asked for a poster that they can place around their area, since that zone has many students studying IT courses in the university.

I have worked on their branding before and that was a given benefit, since some of the elements were available for the poster.

The background pattern brings the attention to the center of the image, not too much in your face, but it is noticeable. In the center you can see the boldest element in the layout – the dark blue circle with the main point of the poster – “We’re HIRING“.

If you squint your eyes and look at the hierarchy of the poster, the elements that stand out most are “TribePad …. We’re HIRING ….. PHP Software Developers……” – and this is good, because that’s the main message.

I’ve tried to create a balance in the colors by mixing the blue and orange throughout the layout. However, notice that the smaller text after the list of job positions, is in blue, but it is smaller. Intentionally so, because the darker blue color stands out more in the context of the orange, and we don’t want it to dominate, but rather provide a foundation for the orange text, so that it doesn’t “float”.

I didn’t come up with the text, but the “30+ million users in 125 countries” is a compelling, attention gathering message, later to be strengthened by “one of the fastest growing businesses” (primary importance) ….. “in the region” (secondary).

Now, we’ve been using legends where samples of the elements on the map/illustration are put in a separate area outside the map and given a name. Another approach is to place the names of the elements around the map and point with lines from the name to the actual element, but this prove to be very messy. At the end you were looking at a spider web.

Finally, the third approach is to add numbers to each map element and replicate those outside the map with a given name for each.

Few critical details made this work in our case.

First, the colors of our Huma brand were used as this is also the style of the illustrations we do. You can see the darker border with the logo color and the number background, which is one of our brand colors as well (notice the paper texture on our website for an example).

Second, you have a very thin black border around the number which in combination with the other two colors makes it stand out on busy background of the illustration. Also we use our brand typeface for entering the numbers and the names of the elements.

Third, the logo of the farm Copia is aligned to the right edge of the illustration. It is also aligned to the top of the image on the same distance as the left (first) column of the legend is aligned respectively to the left side of the image. This gives an invisible pattern that the eye recognizes (since our brains always look for patterns).

Third, the legend columns and elements are structured perfectly the same distances from each other, both vertically and horizontally to give even stronger sense of pattern and order.

Finally, notice how the furthest to the right column and it’s first element, then create a line between it and the first element on the middle column at the top. Notice how this line flows in a similar manner as the edge of the illustration. This all, again, aids structure and allows the eye to follow the composition without disturbances.

I am very happy to say that finally my final year university project is in use. It was to develop the branding for Huma, which initially was about hand-made products and craftsmanship and now we are using with my brother for something not much far off that. It is our cap for regenerative landscape design projects – consultancy, illustration and implementation. Make sure to check our websites for more information and designs!

Finally we have put the official website live and this is what got me to post here. It was a lot of hard work, but it is up and running. Enjoy a preview of the brand – 4-5+ months worth of work.

Another project i picked up from the shelf to share is the identity design for Investurers – this is a project I am working on with few other guys. You’ll find out more about it once we get it online, but in short it is an app for entrepreneurs.

Here is some work i did for Balkep, the balkan ecology project, which is a non-profit organisation founded by Paul Alfrey. It is located in Shipka, Bulgaria and it works in educating people about gardening, permaculture principles and other techniques of restoration agriculture. They are also very passionate about seed saving among other things. Check their website to find out more.

Paul came to me with the need of a logo that would fit square format, something that is very common nowadays with social media avatars. And it is also a practical version of your logo to have in general. He already had his logo for a while, so I decided not to change that and just re-organise it to get the desired result.

Moreover, Paul needed some business cards and I worked on those as well – you can see below. Now, you might also notice that the logo I’m showing above is different to the one on the back of the business cards – that is because of Paul’s specific request.

Logo:

Business Card:

I wanted something clean and minimalist, also modern (think flat) since that’s what Balkep’s identity had been so far.